Raining fish

Written by George Sanders

Before the city of Etonia developed the coast line hosted a few farms, a clump of ancient buildings, and a small fishing community. Spring brought salmon from the ocean into the bay to spawn. This part of the bay was a favored estuary with many large streams feeding the bay. The streams were fast moving and full after intense spring rains. The streams wind through the landscape providing pools for the fish to rest along the bends and pools where gravel accumulated where eggs could be laid.
The amount of fish traveling through the bay always produced a boon for the fishing community. Fish would be smoked or dried and traded but mostly fed the community. Boats were small with nets and sometimes fishing rods the primary tools.
This fishing tradition lives on in Etonia but it was the day that it rained fished that inspired the Fish and Biscuit Rally. Large storms were not uncommon in the forest but the story goes that a particularly fierce storm generated a tornado. It tore across the land and through the village. Many were injured and all knew recovering would be hard. But the tornado kept going, out into the bay. A half hour later fish began raining from the sky.
They story tells us that the fishing community gather up all the fish they could. They could not believe the abundance and laughed at how many fish they had collected. Smoking and drying took all of the communities time. Neighbors from the farms and forest came to help rebuild but were astonished when they left with barrels full of smoked fish.
This was the first rally and began a long tradition of harvesting the spring abundance and preparing the food to share with all who visited. It was years later as more and more people visit that the tornado was put as a cause of the raining fish. It was the twister hitting a school of fish heading toward the estuary that launched them into the air.